


At The End Of The World (You Are Never Coming Home)

by joidianne4eva



Series: Friday Prompt Posts [3]
Category: The Losers (2010), The Losers - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-10
Updated: 2014-02-28
Packaged: 2018-01-08 05:51:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1129090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joidianne4eva/pseuds/joidianne4eva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jensen had never been alone. Even as a child there was always something there and he’d known it even when his parents tried to convince him that it was all in his head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to Cougars_Catnip for the beta. 
> 
> This was inspired by MCR's Ghost of You.

Jensen had never been alone. Even as a child there was always something there and he’d known it even when his parents tried to convince him that it was all in his head. The thing never spoke but he could feel eyes on him when he moved through the dark corridor that connected the living room to his bedroom. Sometimes, at night, cold fingers brushed against his skin, sending him retreating beneath the sheets even though he knew that they couldn’t keep him safe.

When Jake turned twelve he fell out of the tree in his backyard and broke his arm.

He could remember the crack of the bough beneath his feet and the sensation of gravity yanking him down to the earth. But before the darkness and his screams obliterated what was left of his consciousness he remembered dark eyes watching him.

Jake was fourteen when he met Susan Chambers. She was a transfer student from Oklahoma and he’d loved her the moment he laid eyes on her.

The first time he’d invited her over she’d blushed and taken his hand. Jake had felt like he was floating on a cloud until he got home to an empty house and a stifling presence that almost made him retreat.  He never did get around to bringing Susan home with him and soon she lost interest but that was for the best.

The presence seemed to settle after that but Jake was careful of who he talked to and interacted with because he had felt the thing’s anger, seeping into his own mind like tar. The cold silence that followed that episode was better than the fiery heat of the thing’s rage so Jake withdrew and he pretended to not notice the looks his parents sent his way.

*O*

The morning of Jake’s seventeenth birthday he found a boy in his room.

The other teen was shorter than he was and his dark eyes were so familiar that the shout of surprise that had been building in Jake’s throat faded into nothing and he found himself reaching out before he’d even thought about it.

He couldn’t tell who’d been more surprised him or the kid but before he could say a word the boy vanished like he’d never been there.

“Fuck me,” Jake whispered in the silence that followed the kid’s departure.

Standing he turned in a tight circle but the window and his door was shut tight and even if they hadn’t been it wouldn’t have explained how the boy had just disappeared. There was an explanation here, one that had hysterical laughter bubbling in his throat but Jake clamped down on that because the last thing he needed to do was make his parents think he was even crazier than he was.

So he was haunted….and while that wasn’t exactly a normal statement it wasn’t like he could claim ignorance. He’d fucking felt the kid before this, he just hadn’t had a face to put with the feeling and now he did.

Somehow he’d thought it would have helped more than it actually did.

*O*

Jake didn’t see the boy again and the presence faded until he started to think that he’d been imagining the entire thing. His parents smiled more when he didn’t spend all his time holed up in his room and when Jake enlisted the pride on his father’s face made his chest ache but he didn’t look back as he drove away from the old house and all the memories it held.

*O*

Jake was twenty three and no one called him Jake anymore when he saw the boy again.

Basic had been the type of hell that made Jensen wonder why the fuck he’d signed up in the first place. He was nursing a black eye, a sprained wrist and feeling damn sorry for himself when he felt someone’s eyes on him.

The boy was sitting in the only chair at Jensen’s bedside, his wide eyes flickering around the room as if he had no idea how he’d gotten there and Jensen sucked in a sharp breathe when the kid turned his head and stared directly at him.

“Ok, I’m ever going fucking crazy or you’re a really persistent hallucination,” Jensen muttered, shuffling away from the boy because he wasn’t going to call the kid a ghost. Jensen was a grown ass man and he didn’t fucking believe in ghosts!

The boy opened his mouth but no sound came out. The teen shook his head and tried again but only silence followed his attempt. Jensen licked his dry lips when the boy rose to his feet, his brows furrowing and that stifling anger was back, just as sweltering as it had been that day after he’d talked to Susan.

Before Jensen could say a word the boy’s image blurred, dissolving into a plume of smoke that surged upwards and slammed into the ceiling before fading away.

“I’m going to get a fucking ghost whisperer for your ass….or an exorcist!” Jensen snarled before swiping a hand across his face because he was talking to a figment of his imagination. If his CO caught wind of this shit he’d be fucked and not even in the good way either.

*O*

Jensen was twenty eight and bleeding out in a dirty run down warehouse when he saw the boy again.

The last thing he remembered was an explosion that took out several houses and his entire unit. He could still smell the smoke and hear the screams as the fire consumed everything in its path. The whole thing had been a fucking set up from the start and they’d been pinned down under gunfire when the bastards set off the explosives. He’d barely managed to drag himself out of their safe house and into the woods before everything came crashing down.

Cold hands pressing against his face made him open his eyes and Jensen cracked a tired smile as he stared up at the familiar face.

The boy’s eyes were red and his face was stained with tears. Jensen couldn’t help himself as he reached out and tried to brush them away but the boy flinched as his hand went right through him.

Jensen curled his fingers into a fist as he pulled them back.

“Sorry, buddy. I don’t think we’re gonna be seeing each other again and here I don’t even know your name,” he joked because he taken two bullets to the gut and he knew there wasn’t a damn way that he was coming back from this one.

The boy shook his head sending his curls flying and Jensen wished that he could at least give the kid a hug because ghost or not this wasn’t somewhere for a kid to be.

A wrack of pain arched through his body and Jensen’s vision blurred for a moment. When he refocused the boy’s lips were moving, the same words being formed over and over again. Jensen blinked as he tried to push back the darkness creeping in on his vision and everything seemed to slow around him as he made out what the boy was trying to say….

“Find me.”

The words were the last thing that Jensen knew as the world around him faded away.

Dying had a strange way of throwing things into perspective but as his memories coalesced Jensen barely paid them any mind because he had a mission now, one that he would be damned before he failed.

*O*

Carlos had always been a sickly child. At the age of seven his mama had to pull him from his school because all the days spent at home had put him so far behind his other classmates. Maria Alvarez couldn’t stay at home with him because she needed to work but Carlos was never truly alone.

Carlos never told anyone about the blond boy that he could sometimes see even though the boy didn’t seem to be able to see him.

When the pain of his illness grew too great and he was confined to his bed Carlos watched the boy’s life unfold in an attempt to distract himself from the sorrow in his mama’s eyes.

The doctors had used words like cancer and terminal but Carlos didn’t know what any of those meant.  All he could do was lay there and hope that the boy would come back and he always did.

Sometimes the boy looked older but at other times he was even smaller than Carlos was. But it never truly mattered because as long as the other boy was there Carlos didn’t feel as afraid.

*O*

Carlos was eighteen when his abuela came to visit for the first time. The woman was his father’s mother but Carlos had never laid eyes on her. His mama said that she couldn’t see him because he reminded the woman of the son that she’d lost. Carlos had never known his papa but he’d seen pictures and he couldn’t truly blame her because he did look like the man.

His abuela was a small woman with shrewd eyes that made Carlos want to duck his head to keep from meeting her gaze but then she smiled and Carlos couldn’t help but copy the action.

“You look like my Jose but I can feel the Santiago blood in your veins,” she whispered when Maria was gone, her fingers gripping Carlos’ as she glanced around the room. “So where is it? I can feel it lingering in this place.”

Carlos frowned at her. “Where is what?” he asked but his abuela just sighed, wrinkling her nose.

“You are sick, you have been sick since the moment you were born but here in this place it does not get worse, si?”

Carlos nodded, uncertain of what his abuela was trying to say but before he could ask the boy was back again except this time he wasn’t a boy.

The only thing of the boy that remained in the soldier before him was the colour of his hair and eyes. This man carried himself with none of the uncertainty that the boy used to wear like a cloak and when he smiled Carlos’ heart thundered in his chest.

The sound of his abuela’s laughter drew him back to the present and Carlos frowned at her but the woman wasn’t looking at him, instead her eyes were glued to the soldier who was slowly fading.

“This is what you give your energy to…..I cannot say I disapprove, he is muy guapo.”

“My energy?” Carlos asked in confusion because his abuela could see what he did, something that not even his mama could.

The woman nodded as she patted his hand. “There is much I have to tell you, Carlito but you must remember that there will be a choice, you or him. Choose wisely, my little brujo.”

*O*

 When Jensen opened his eyes he was standing in his old room but it wasn’t his room anymore. It hadn’t been his room for over fifty years and he knew that know, he knew that the only reason that he was here was because of the boy lying on the bed in front of him.

His uniform felt stiff with blood and dirt but Jensen’s focus was only on the rise and falls of the teen’s chest and as he knelt beside the bed the kid opened his eyes.

“Hey, kiddo….” Jensen whispered and the boy’s lips curled into a slow smile.

“Hola,” he croaked, his voice faint and Jensen’s chest ached because he’d done this. If the kid hadn’t been here, hadn’t been pouring his energy into him he wouldn’t be dying, not now. He couldn’t believe that he’d been scared of this boy once when all the teen had been doing was keeping him from fading away.

Cold fingers pressing against his face made him glance up into brown eyes that held more knowledge than they should have and when the boy reached out Jensen grabbed his hand.

Around them the room seemed to shimmer and then between one breath and the next the boy sat up, leaving behind an empty corpse, when he tried to look back Jensen pulled on his hand keeping the kid’s focus on him.

“Hey wanna see something nifty?” he asked and the boy nodded as his fingers tightened around Jensen’s. Jensen grinned and reached down beneath his skin for the energy he could feel now that he knew what was going on and then he shoved it into the link.

The world exploded into a kaleidoscope of colours that seemed to flow through and around them until it stopped and Jensen was looking down at the body on the bed again as the boy sucked in a sharp breath and then another.

A hand on his shoulder made Jensen glance behind him and he frowned at the strange old woman that was smiling down at him.

“You made the right choice, he deserves to live,” she murmured and Jensen bit his lip as he looked down at the boy again.

“So I guess this is the part where I get sent to wherever people go after they’re dead, right?” he asked but the woman just snorted.

“For your kind death is not the end….all you must do now is wait,” she responded and Jensen frowned.

“Wait for what?”

The woman’s smile shifted into a smirk. “For him.”

 


	2. Here I Hide (Underneath My Innocence)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jensen didn’t scare easily but this new world terrified him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thanks to Cougars_Catnip for the read through and beta.

Jensen didn’t scare easily but this new world terrified him.

The old woman, who he’d learned was the boy’s grandmother, had tried to explain to him what had happened. She’d even told him that the boy, Carlos, was not really a boy because apparently he was eighteen but Jensen’s mind couldn’t see him as anything but a child.

According to Lucia Santiago, Jensen had been dead for more than fifty years.

It had been a bitter pill to swallow to know that all the people he’d called family were long gone, that there was no one waiting for him but Jensen had managed it. He’d had fifty years of memories to keep him sane and he knew that there was no going back for him.  Despite his intention to accept his circumstances when Jensen worked up the courage to look out the window the vehicles on the street and the people on the sidewalk had still seemed like strange, alien things.

He was glad that at least his home hadn’t changed much despite the fact that it must have been a home to several families before this one settled here. 

He’d taken to following the other woman who Lucia told him was Carlos’ mother around the house. Sometimes if he stood close enough to her she’d shiver and rub at her skin or she’d stare at the place where he stood as if she could see _something_ but unlike Lucia she never spoke to him so Jensen was fairly certain that she couldn’t actually see him.

More often than not Jensen just sat by Carlos’ bedside and did what Lucia had told him to do.

He waited.

The young man still looked frail even in his sleep and Jensen wasn’t sure what Lucia had done to Maria because the woman sometimes came into the room and talked at Carlos as if he could and was answering her.

Jensen wasn’t stupid; he knew what Lucia was…a witch.

 It clung to her like a dark cloak spread across her small frame and once upon a time it would have been enough to make him worry but what could a witch do to a ghost?

They were both unnatural creatures and Lucia hadn’t seemed like she wanted him gone. If anything the curious looks that she shot between him and Carlos made Jensen wonder just what the woman knew but she wasn’t talking so Jensen just kept on waiting.

*O*

Carlos woke on a Friday; Jensen knew that because Lucia had taken to telling him what day it was. Jensen wasn’t sure what she was trying to accomplish but at least it let him know that it was a Friday when Carlos’ eyes blinked open.

In all honesty he could have reacted better.

*O*

Carlos blinked in surprise when the soldier who had been sitting beside his bed vanished for a second before flickering into view several feet away with a rueful look on his face.

“You’re awake,” the soldier greeted and Carlos frowned, glancing over his shoulder but this didn’t seem to be one of the man’s memories.

“You are speaking to me?” he queried and the soldier grinned as he stepped towards the bed.

“Yeah, I’m talking to you. God knows you scared about seven years of my life…or death,” he gestured at himself but Carlos’ eyes were glued to the brilliant smile on the man’s face.

“You have never talked to me before,” he pointed out but the soldier just shrugged.

“I sorta thought that you were a ghost…not that you look like a ghost or anything like that, I just didn’t realize I was dead. Though talking about people being dead, what kind of stupid stunt was that? You were dead because of me! And I’m grateful that you think I deserved to live again but kid you don’t get to make those sorts of choices!”  The man lectured but Carlos just glared back at him because he’d do it again if that meant that the soldier wouldn’t have to go through another cycle of living and dying. The blond must have figured out what his expression meant because he swiped a hand across his face. “Look, you stay here and I’m going to get your grandmother, ok?”

Carlos glanced pointedly at his still limbs because he hadn’t been able to move on his own for four months so there was little chance of him doing it now.

The soldier hesitated for a moment and Carlos let his brow rise like his mama’s used to when he claimed to have done something impossible and finally the man caved but not before shooting Carlos one last look.

Then he turned and walked right through the door. Carlos was starting to wonder if being friends with a ghost was bad for his mental stability but seeing as said ghost was his only friend he wasn’t about to say anything.

 

*O*

Jensen listened peripherally as Lucia berated Carlos. He’d tried to linger at the edge of the room and give them space but after the third time that he suddenly found himself inches from the teen’s bed he’d given up on that particular route of action.

“Do you understand what I am saying, Carlito? You cannot simply throw all of your life force at him; it does not work that way!” Lucia growled….Jensen wasn’t even exaggerating. He was half expecting the woman to start sprouting hair like one of the werewolves he’d seen on Maria’s TV.

Jensen liked these new modern televisions, they were much clearer than his old one had been and the people had such nifty words. Words like batshit crazy. He really liked that one because it described Lucia perfectly.

The second that the thought manifested Lucia’s eyes narrowed on Jensen and he pasted his best innocent expression on his face because along with being batshit crazy, Lucia was also legitimately terrifying.

Thankfully Carlos pulled the woman’s attention back to him and Jensen exhaled the breath he didn’t even think he needed anymore.

“You said that I was already feeding it to him,” the boy muttered, his arms crossed across his chest and Jensen just wanted to pet the kid because he looked so determined, like dying didn’t mean a damn thing to him.

“I told you that there was a connection! This connection kept your energies focused on one thing instead of letting them spill into the cosmos as they had been doing from the moment you were born. Our craft requires sutileza not this bulldozing method that you adapted!” she spat back and Jensen could see the moment that she got through to Carlos because the boy seemed to slump even further into his pillows.

“I did not want him to die again,” Carlos whispered and Jensen narrowed his eyes at Lucia when she opened her mouth to respond.

“The kid did what he thought was right, you could lay off him a bit.” He cut in, meeting the old woman’s shrewd eyes.

The shadows around Lucia seemed to darken for a moment and her entire frame swelled before Jensen’s eyes but he held his ground because Carlos had jumped into the fire for him and what harm could you do to a dead man?

The silence stretched taut and Jensen could feel Lucia’s anger like a living thing that brushed against his skin, sending his nerves tingling but he didn’t drop his eyes from hers.

Outside a crow cawed and just like that Lucia seemed to deflate, her eyes flickering to the window. Jensen followed her gaze just in time to see the bird go hurtling by, its wings casting a shadow for a second before it was gone.

“Fine,” Lucia sighed, her gaze shifting back to Carlos who was watching her warily. “Your soldier is right, you did not know what you were doing but you will learn.”

Jensen didn’t know why the words made him shiver but they did.

*O*

Jensen was sure that Maria was under some sort of spell because she barely batted an eye when Lucia told her that Carlos would be staying with her for a few months.

He’d have said as much but there was the fact that Lucia genuinely scared him so he kept his mouth shut.

The move from his house to Lucia’s was more traumatic for Carlos than it was for him. One moment he was standing in Carlos’ empty room and the next he was in an unfamiliar yard. The only thing that kept him from running screaming into the night was the fact that he wasn’t able to step foot past the gate. He’d tried….he’d tried multiple times and he would’ve kept on trying if it wasn’t for the car that pulled up.

The tension bled from Jensen’s frame when Lucia wheeled Carlos out of the vehicle and he didn’t even call her on her less than pleasant bedside manner.

*O*

“You will learn this spell and then we will truly begin your tutelage,” Lucia told Carlos, handing him a piece of paper.

Carlos glared at his abuela as she marched to the edge of the room without another word. He knew that the woman was still angry at him but if she thought that he would fail then he was going to show her.

“What’s that?”

Jensen’s familiar voice made Carlos glance at him. The soldier had been engrossed in the war documentary that Carlos had managed to find for him but now he was mere inches away from Carlos’ wheelchair peering curiously at the sheet of paper.

Carlos shook his head, hoping that the blush that heated his cheeks wasn’t as visible as he thought it was. Having Jensen’s attention on him was so different from the times that he’d managed to interact with Jake while the boy had been caught in his memories. Jake’s gaze had never made his chest hurt with need but Jensen’s did and Carlos didn’t know what to do about that.

Refolding the paper he allowed a small smile to curl his lips. “It is nothing,” he responded finally, glancing to where his abuela was lingering at the edge of the room, her dark eyes steady as she watched him. “…simply a test that I will not fail.”

Jensen pursed his lips like he wanted to say something then he shrugged. Of course you won’t fail, you’re awesome just like that word ‘awesome. I like it, I heard it on one of those programs and I think I’m using it correctly?”

The soldier’s tone was unsure and this time the smile that stretched Carlos’ lips felt more natural as he explained the meaning of the words that Jensen had managed to pick up while he’d been sleeping.

The spell felt heavy in his pocket but Carlos had meant what he’d said. He would get it right because the spell was the first step towards giving Jensen his life back and Carlos would go to the ends of the earth to ensure that. Jensen was his first friend, his only friend, and there wasn’t a damn thing that Carlos wouldn’t do to ensure that the blond was never alone again.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the most part Jensen managed to keep his lingering distrust of this world hidden from Carlos.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thanks to Cougars_Catnip for the read through and beta.

For the most part Jensen managed to keep his lingering distrust of this world hidden from Carlos. It wasn’t exactly difficult given that the teen had taken to shutting himself away in his room, pouring over the piece of paper that Lucia had given him. Jensen hadn’t tried to intrude on Carlos’ privacy but he’d put his foot down or the ghostly equivalent of putting ones foot down when it came to Carlos’ need for food and sleep.

If nothing else looking after the kid helped to distract him from the strange place where wars were fought behind lies and people spat the name America like it was a curse.

In Jensen’s time their country had been a paragon of things good. They weren’t saints, they’d shed to much blood to lay claim to that title but they hadn’t been the devil that was being portrayed on the TV.

A part of Jensen wanted to ask about that, to ask where it had all changed but Carlos was too busy to interrupt and Jensen was avoiding Lucia like the plague. Because despite the fact that woman had allowed him to stay under her roof, Jensen didn’t feel comfortable being in the same room as her for too long.

So for the most part Jensen tried to observe and learn everything he could, his army training kicking in, in the face of his uncertainty.

Thankfully Lucia didn’t seem to be bothered by him watching the TV almost nonstop and in thanks Jensen didn’t use the new words that he learned would make her eye twitch. Well he _did_ use them but just not out loud.

He’d managed to develop a not so secret obsession with all things technology and he often found himself imagining what it would have been like if all the things present today had been built in his time.

In all honesty if he ignored the whole “man out of time” thing, he had to say that he was doing pretty good for a dead man.

The only damper on his spirit other than his own un-life was Carlos.

While it was true that Jensen could just walk into the teen’s room at any given time Jensen remembered what it was like to never have space of his own so he resisted the urge to mother the kid to within an inch of his life.

But Jensen wasn’t a patient man, he’d never been one and the next time Carlos came down from his Fortress of Solitude, thank you Superman movies, Jensen was going to stick to him like glue.

The blond was so caught up in his musings that didn’t even realize that he’d been tipping forward until his face slammed into the TV screen.

“Holy mother of fuck!” he yelped, hands coming up to cradle his throbbing nose when two things hit him like a sledgehammer swung by Paul Bunyan.

First and foremost he was in pain, not just a memory of pain but honest to God, would bring a tear to your eye, pain. Secondly he’d touched the screen…well more like challenged it to unarmed combat via headbutt but still, touched!

Dropping his hands from his face Jensen stared at them in awe.

For the most part they were his same old hands, right down to the scar that he’d gotten while trying to steal one of his mother’s cookies from the oven. At least they _were_ his same old hands if he ignored the marks that were flowing upwards from his wrists.

It was as if some unseen artist was using his skin as their persona canvas and Jensen held himself rigid as the tendril like vines solidified into actual shapes.

The edge of a wing appeared first, followed by the sharp angular features of a predatory bird. His skin seemed to hum with energy as the drawings sped up, lines thickening as the image solidified surrounding the bird’s body with spiraling lines of red and amber that caught fire in the evening’s sun as Jensen slowly turned his hands.

Then the drawing stopped and for a second the whole world seemed to slow as the bird uncoiled, rising from his skin like a spectre as it spread its wings. As Jensen watched it caught fire setting the world blazing as it launched itself towards the ceiling.

*O*

Carlos curled in on himself and tried to breathe through the pain that was seeping into his bones. His abuela hadn’t told him that the spell would hurt but there were so many things that she didn’t tell him that Carlos wasn’t even surprised.

It had taken him two weeks to get it right, the words twisting and crumbling into dust on his tongue but he’d persevered. Then he’d figured it out. He’d been trying so hard to make the spell work, that he hadn’t thought about what Lucia had said about energy. If pouring his will into the first spell that she’d taught him had dragged Jensen from the endless cycle that he was trapped in then he was certain that the same could work for this spell too.

It worked; at least Carlos thought it was working.

The thought vanished as something soared into his room. The air around him caught fire as the creature spun, its shrieks rattling the windows. Carlos was frozen in his chair, fingers unable to reach for his wheels as another wave of pain slammed into him making him grit his teeth against the urge to cry out.

The creature’s shrieks rose as did the surges of pain until Carlos’ vision blurred as dark spots danced before his eyes, weaving into the flames that coated the phoenix’s body.

There was banging at his door that Carlos could barely make out above the racket but he couldn’t focus on that not when the very air in his lungs seemed to be on fire.

The door flew open a second later banging against the far wall and the phoenix gave one final shriek as it fled, vanishing through wall as if there was no barrier there.

The last thing Carlos saw was Jensen’s sky blue eyes as cold hands pressed against his face and then everything faded away as his will gave out.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They both pulled back as the markings on Jensen’s arms glowed a bright gold in the dark room, dimming as soon as their hands were no longer in contact.
> 
> “Okay,” Jensen started, meeting Carlos’ curious eyes. “I know I’m not familiar with your time period but extensive time spent in front of your TV is telling me that that wasn’t normal.”
> 
> “Less normal than a man that cannot die?” Lucia shot back with a smirk and Jensen glared at her because the woman knew what was going on here. It was written all over her face but Lucia wouldn’t be Lucia if she didn’t make him beg for the information.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thanks to Cougars_Catnip for the speedy read through and beta.

Jensen woke to the soft whisper of words and a heavy weight against his side. The last thing he could remember was reaching Carlos as the burning creature disappeared. After that there was nothing but darkness.

Blinking slowly he turned his head to the side, squinting slightly when a ray of light hit him square in the face.

“Jensen.”

The soft voice broke through the whispers and Jensen forced his eyes open.

The first thing he realized was that he was laying on what had to be Carlos’ bed as the teen in question stared at him from the chair that normally sat at his bedside. The simple fact that Carlos wasn’t in his wheelchair was enough to have Jensen pushing himself upright but strong hands forced him back down. Jensen twisted until he could meet Lucia’s eye, frowning at her in confusion but it was only when his back hit the sheets again that he realized Lucia had actually _touched_ him.

“Wha…” he started, clearing his throat as he glanced back at Carlos. “What’s going on? How the hell can you touch me and what was that thing?”

Carlos shot a look at his grandmother that Jensen couldn’t decipher but before he could ask again, Lucia moved to stand behind Carlos’ chair.

“We will answer your questions but first how do you feel?” the old woman asked and Jensen blinked at her in surprise because as far as he was aware Lucia didn’t care whether he lived or died…well stayed dead, in his case.

“I’m fine.” Jensen responded slowly, his mind flickering over all the things that had recently happened. “Nothing much to report other than these,” he offered up, twisting his arms so that they could both see the strange markings that were still etched into his skin.

Carlos’ dark eyes dropped to the markings, a furrow creasing between his brows. One of his hands lifted as if to reach out and touch them but at the last second he paused, glancing at his grandmother.

Jensen didn’t think, he just shifted his hand until the tips of his fingers were a few inches away from Carlos’. It was only then that he stilled because he remembered touching Carlos before the world had crashed down around them but if it was just a false memory he’d rather have it than the knowledge that there was still a barrier between the two of them.

He was just about to pull his hand back when Carlos moved, his fingers brushing against Jensen’s in a gentle caress. The sensation of skin brushing against his own hit Jensen like a kick to the gut. It hadn’t been this visceral when Lucia had touched him but then again, he hadn’t spent countless moments worrying about Lucia.

They both pulled back as the markings on Jensen’s arms glowed a bright gold in the dark room, dimming as soon as their hands were no longer in contact.

“Okay,” Jensen started, meeting Carlos’ curious eyes. “I know I’m not familiar with your time period but extensive time spent in front of your TV is telling me that that wasn’t normal.”

“Less normal than a man that cannot die?” Lucia shot back with a smirk and Jensen glared at her because the woman knew what was going on here. It was written all over her face but Lucia wouldn’t be Lucia if she didn’t make him beg for the information.

“Last time I checked I was already dead so I know you’re not referring to me unless there’s something you forgot to tell me,” Jensen kept his tone blunt, holding Lucia’s gaze despite the way that her narrowed eyes made his skin crawl.

“Can a dead man feel pain? Can he touch or be touched?” Lucia demanded, her voice a low sibilant whisper in the silence that had settled between them.

Jensen opened his mouth to respond but Carlos beat him to it.

“It is the spell.”

Jensen’s mouth snapped shut as he turned his attention back to the younger man. “What spell?”

Carlos rotated his wrists, holding his hand out to Jensen and the blond sat up with a muffled gasp as he stared at the words burned into Carlos’ palms.

He reached out slowly, licking his lips when Carlos didn’t pull away. The moment that his fingers brushed against the raised ridges of the letters the familiar tingle was racing up his on arm but Jensen kept his hands there, eyes on Carlos’ face. “What the hell did you do?”

“He completed the binding,” Lucia responded, her lips curling up into a slow smile. “A bruja is only as strong as her familiar but the strength cannot be shared if one of them is dead. Tell me Pantera, how does it feel to be alive?”

“What did she just call me?” Jensen growled, his eyes locked with Lucia’s. The woman’s words had something shifting unpleasantly beneath his skin and it was only Carlos’ hand on his that kept him seated.

“No,” Carlos cut in, shoving at Jensen until he was leaning against the headboard of the bed again. Jensen let the Carlos manoeuvre him but he kept his eyes on Lucia. “Jake, it was not an insult!”

Carlos’ voice made Jensen drag his eyes from the old woman.

“It means Panther, that is all,” Carlos explained and Jensen exhaled slowly.

“Ok, fine but what about everything else. I mean I get that you don’t like me…” he addressed Lucia. “But that was a shitty joke.”

Neither of the two responded and Jensen frowned as he glanced at Carlos, who met his eyes reluctantly, his fingers pressing against the marks that Jensen could still feel on his own skin.

“She was not joking.”

There were many moments in Jensen’s life when he regretted his incapability to hide what the fuck he was feeling and as far as he was concerned this wasn’t one of them.

“I’m sorry, for a second there I actually thought you said that I wasn’t dead…which is impossible and before you say a damn word it is more fucking impossible than being a ghost.” Jensen gritted out, narrowing his eyes as he stared at the two of them.

Carlos’ fingers tightened around his wrist and Jensen forced himself to keep still and not just pull away.

“It is the spell,” Carlos started again, shaking his head when Jensen opened his mouth. “I did not tell you because I was not sure if it would work.”

“What Carlito is trying to tell you is that the energy that you held for him would be enough to keep him whole but not enough to make him better and then there is the fact that one cannot have a familiar that is dead…technically or not. It would only be a matter of time before both of you succumbed.”

“And you couldn’t just say that from the beginning?!” Jensen demanded and this time Carlos glared at him like he was the one who’d been keeping secrets.

“I did not wish to give you false hope….” the younger man spat and Jensen could understand that but it still felt like there was a big part of this puzzle that he was missing.

“Carlos did not want you to know that maintaining the connection between the two of you was still killing him.”

Jensen went cold at Lucia’s words just as Carlos spun to glare at his grandmother.

“Abuela!”

“Do not think to censor me Carlos. Your soldier has the right to know that you will never stop putting him before yourself. Just as much as he needs to know that it will be his responsibility to keep you from pushing too far, too fast.”

Jensen swallowed in the silence that followed the woman’s words. “So I’m alive?” he whispered and Carlos glanced at him, his uncertainty clear on his face even as he nodded in confirmation.

Slipping his hand from beneath the younger man’s Jensen curled their fingers together, squeezing lightly before turning to Lucia.

“What happens now?” he asked because being a ghost had offered him a level of security in this strange world that Jensen didn’t realize he’d needed until now.

“Now you live.” Lucia responded, glancing down at their clasped hands. “You have much to learn….”

“But we will have each other,” Carlos cut in, softening the dire tone of Lucia’s words.

Jensen met Carlos’ eyes, taking in the hope warring with fear and he couldn’t help but smile.

This wasn’t going to be easy but he’d damn well try, if not for himself then for Carlos.

“Ok,” he responded, grinning when Carlos smiled at him. It was just one word but it felt like a promise, a promise to himself as well as Carlos.

After all Carlos had never left him alone and the least that Jensen could do was repay the favor with his life, the life that Carlos had given back to him.

*O*

Outside the caw of a crow broke the quiet of the evening as the bird took flight and Lucia grinned as she followed its path with her eyes.

She wasn’t a seer but she knew that both of her boys would be just fine.

 


End file.
